Here is what Ahead replied: "...we do not include any spyware in Nero! Our StartSmart launcher can check that the user has the latest versions and prompt accordingly. This saves the user from having to do this on a regular basis because as you know, we are always adding a lot of new things. (a little bit like Adobe or MS who often prompt when new versions are uploaded) This is already proving to be popular so there is nothing sinister about other information that could be gathered from a users system..."

As about the registery, Nero hides this deep in the registery, so that you cannot continue to use a trial software beyond the trial version. If you want to continue to do so after this time, simply purchase the software.

Nero is not alone, almost ALL companies with trial software also hide this deep in the registery, this is to protect their "legal property". I would do the same if I was a software producer. Myself, I am a singer/songwriter. I protect my works by copyright as well.

LOL Mate... it's a LONG hungry road! Mostly you make the money from forming a band a playing out. I have a CD out, and another on the way. But it was a long cold road to get there..... we do pretty well playing gigs out locally..... I sent Laffin a CD and it actually ended up playing on jukeboxes in pubs all over where he lives and people loved it......

LOL, some people will listen to anything! seriously, my band "Back Porch Project" has become quite popular in the state I live...... we have booked so many places, and we have establishments calling us for booking information..... However, this is isolated, I know.... I have been there.... it's a hard road. I am happy that people like to listen to "out" music, more than I am over anything.

I did try to negotiate with some "BIG" record companies, which I will not name, because they will sue the PANTS off of me, and they would not negotiate, they DID want to record us and release it, but they wanted ALL the money.....

This is possibly why the RIAA and the MPAA wants to sue everyone........ I won't comment on that.. but I would like to hear some user comments on this subject.

I understand your problems with Nero, I myself had problems with Nero and ended up using other burning software with which I'm satisfied. About your comment that Nero has spyware: like the others said, Nero connects to ahead's server to check for updates. Besides that, it also checks for your serial number. That's all it does. Nero is not the only program that does that, Sonic and Roxio burning software do that too, but you can deactivate that in options, whereas you can't do that in Nero. I hope this clearifies things for you.

Cheers, aLiEn

P.S. This forums' mods/admins are more tolerant then for example the mods/admins at cdrlabs or cdfreaks. There, I got my posts deleted just because I expressed my opinion about a certain topic. Haven't seen that happen here yet...

aLiEn we don't delete posts so easily , about the Nero checking for updates and serial number, this is not very good especilly since user is NOT notified about this behaviour, Ahead should state this somewhere and let user decide or not if want to proceed with this

Believe me when I tell you that Nero sends your serial number to ahead's servers (among other things), that's one of the methods ahead uses to blacklist illegal serial numbers (they also check for illegal serial numbers posted on the web etc)!